Tarrant's Christmas
by CaptainHooksGirl
Summary: Christmas in Marmoreal is a magical time of the year, but Tarrant has a hard time finding the Christmas spirit when he has no family to celebrate with.  It just might take a Christmas miracle to convince him that he is not alone.  I DON'T OWN anything!


There is no sight in Underland quite as beautiful as Marmoreal at Christmastime. The magnificent white marble castle, a breathtaking beauty in the summer, was even grander now, covered in a glittery blanket of soft, fluffy snow and laced with magnificent icicles that hung like precious crystals from each and every overhang of the towers. It always snowed in Underland on Christmas. Well, it used to, anyway…back before the Red Queen's army took over and Time, that fickle, silly man, had decided to stop, for in those dark years it was strictly forbidden to even speak about the sacred holiday. But now that the White Queen had regained the crown, all was right in the world. Time had started up again, and the Christmas snow came right on schedule. It was the first snow that Underland had seen in nearly thirteen years, and it was Alice's first Christmas in Underland. She was perfectly enchanted with the scene, as were all of her Underlanian friends. All, that is, except for a certain hatter.

"Hatter!" Alice poked her head out of the castle door. "Hatter, what are you doing? You've been out here for hours, and it's freezing! You'll catch cold if you don't come in soon."

The milliner remained sitting on the bench, his back turned to her. He didn't mean to ignore her – oh, no! He could never ignore Alice – but he was lost deep in thought, and he did not hear her call.

She stepped out into the snow, careful not to fall in her black leather "Santa" boots. She was dressed in rather festive attire, a simple red dress with fluffy white cuffs and matching trim around the bottom. A thick black leather belt was tight around her waist – though not so tight as one of those horrid corsets! – and red tights outlined the curves of her legs. Though red was generally frowned upon in Underland since Iracebeth's rule, at Christmas, they made a few exceptions.

"Hatter?"

Had he turned to see her, the hatter would have thought her quite beautiful, but his mind was far from the present.

"Hatter, are you alright? Tarrant?"

He winced. That got his attention. "Oh, pardon!" He quickly rose and turned to face her. "Forgive me, Alice. My mind was…elsewhere."

His eyes, she noticed, were the faintest baby blue. Were those frozen tears upon his cheek?

She grabbed his rough, bandaged hands in her own and looked into his eyes with sympathy. "Hatter, I know that this is a difficult time for you, and I understand, but – "

His eyes flashed red, and he jerked his hands free as though he'd been touching a hot stove. "Nay, ye doonae understand! Do ye know what it's like to hafta celebrate when yer family lies cold and dead in their graves?" His Outlandish accent was stronger than ever. "Do ye know," he yelled, "how much it hurts ta see everyone with their loved ones and not have yer own? Do ye know," his voice dropped to a harsh whisper, "what it's like ta have no hope and ta feel like yer hart has been ripped out and shattered into a thousand pieces? Nay, ye doonea know. Ye cannae understand. No one can."

He fell to his knees and covered his face in his hands. He hated it whenever he was lost to the madness in front of Alice. It was terribly embarrassing, and to make matters worse, it looked as though he'd hurt her feelings. His eyes were blue again when he looked up. "Oh, Alice! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you, I would never hurt you! You're my best friend, a great friend, wonderful friend, a right-proper-Alice-sized fr – "

"Hatter!"

"Sorry!" he squeaked. "I'm fine." The strain in his voice was worse than usual.

Alice dropped to her knees beside him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Are you?"

"No." It was so soft she barely heard him. "I should have died with them, Alice. It should have been me, but I was too much of a coward to save them."

"You were helping the White Queen escape, she protested. "You were helping all of Underland. It's what your family would have wanted, is it not?"

"Aye," the Scottish brogue was back, but this time his words remained soft. "Perhaps it is. But as much as I admire and respect Queen Mirana, I should have put mah fam'ly furst."

Alice considered his words. "Well, you're right about one thing," she said. "I _don't_ know what it's like to lose my entire family, but I _do_ know how much it pained me to celebrate Christmas the first time without my father." She paused. "It was dreadful, and for a long time, I wanted to give up hope, too. But then I realized that that's what Christmas is all about," she stated matter-of-factly. "It's about the hope of a Savior who conquered death itself so that we might enjoy a life after this world with Him. That's where my father is now, and it's where your family is, too."

She tried to look him in the eye, but he could only stare straight ahead, unable to speak. "They're not gone forever, you know, and I imagine that Christmas in heave must be a grand sight, don't you think?" She smiled gently at him and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"They'll always be with you in your heart, and I'm sure they'd want you to enjoy today. After all, it is our first Christmas together." She smiled as she glanced down at the ring on her left hand, then stood and walked back to the door. "Don't say outside too much longer. We're about to open the gifts."

The hatter watched as she turned and closed the door to go back inside. He sighed. How he wished he could be happy today if for no other reason than to please Alice, but it was hard to be happy when all he could thing about was how much he missed his mother's snowberry pie or his father's hearty laugh.

And then there was Rose. Little Rose Alexandra Hightopp. His little sister. The last Christmas they'd spent together, she'd been only eight. Though he was much older than she, they'd always been close. It was a tradition for the Hightopps to have a magnificent snowball fight on Christmas Day. Of course, he walwyas let Rose win, but it had been fun, nonetheless. He looked down at his hands and unwrapped one of the bandages. The scars were still there from the day he'd pulled her lifeless little body form the flames and charred remains of his village. He felt another tear slide down his cheek. She had been so young. At least he had one thing to thank the Bloody Big Head for – so long as she had ruled, there had been no Christmas, and as long as there was no Christmas, there was no pain of remembering their last holiday together as a family. He smiled darkly at the irony.

He stood up and brushed the snow from his pants, then took off his top hat and dusted it off, too. But just as he was putting it back on, a snowball hit him square in the back of the head, sending it flying across the courtyard.

"What in Underland?" he muttered. He spun around, expecting to see the characteristic grin of that annoying feral cat, but no one was there. He started walking over to where the hat had landed. "Alright, Chessur, that's nae funny! Come out where I can see ya, ye slurvish – Hey!"

A sudden breeze picked up and began rolling the hat across the garden. "Hey! Come back here with mah hat!"

He chased the hat for what seemed like hours, but finally, he caught up with it. "Gotcha!" He snatched up the hat and quickly placed it back atop his head. He turned to go but stopped when he realized what had kept his hat from rolling any further. There, in the middle of the palace garden, was a rose bush in full bloom, the flowers' creamy white petals reaching up to the heavens. Even in Underland the flowers went to sleep in winter, yet here was a rose that refused to die. He looked curiously at the flowers before noticing that something else was amiss. Beside the rosebush was a snow angel. A perfectly Rose-sized snow angel. At first, he thought that perhaps Alice or one of his friends had made it, but the angel was undoubtedly human-shaped, and Alice was much too big to make such a small snow angel. There had been no need for her to use pisshalver as of late, and he could not fathom Mirana acting so undignified as to lie down in the snow. No, the angel in the snow was undoubtedly a little child. He plucked a rose gently from the bush.

There is an old Underlanian legend that says that when it snows, the angels are having a pillow fight. Tarrant knew one angel who was having a very merry Christmas this year. He smiled.

"Hatter!" Alice called out the back door. "It's time to open presents!"

He tucked the rose into his top hat and turned to go inside. _Yes_, he thought, as looked up at the sky, _I have one angel waiting for me in heaven and another waiting for me inside._ Perhaps this would be a merry Christmas after all.


End file.
